Category: Humanitarian

Our new Grantee Profile focuses on the Helping Horse Therapeutic Riding Program, a nonprofit that provides equestrian therapy to special-needs children in Wake County and the surrounding area:
For many developmentally challenged youngsters, a miracle is waiting on a 13-acre farm north of Raleigh: a horse.
Time on horseback can be life changing for special-needs children. Some children speak their first words while riding. Directing a powerful animal like a horse boosts confidence, improves coordination, and teaches valuable skills — skills that can set kids on a path to new life.
Such dreams come true every week at Helping Horse, a therapeutic riding program that helps children grow and develop through recreational activities with horses. Founded in 1989, Helping Horse serves an average of 30 riders each week.
The program is run entirely by volunteers — up to 75 a week — and has no paid staff. In 1997, the program moved to its current location on the White Farm...

Our new Grantee Profile focuses on the Raleigh Rescue Mission, a nonprofit serving the homeless in North Carolina's capital city:
Robert came to the Raleigh Rescue Mission with a long list of medical problems: prostate cancer, lupus, a knee injury, and a hernia. At the time, he had been living on the streets of downtown Raleigh for five years, destitute and alone.
“It was cold nights. It was rainy days,” Robert said when describing his homeless life. “I couldn’t do anything but go between the soup kitchen and the shelter. I couldn’t find a job.”
Without the Raleigh Rescue Mission, Robert admits that he would be dead today.
“I am really grateful for being here,” he said. “I really am. The Mission has given me a second chance at life, and I really need it.”
Another client, Melissa, says that the Mission saved her life. Her drug addiction had taken control of her, but after she got help, she’s been back in school to become job ready.
“All of my...

Our new Achiever Spotlight tells the story of Lynn Daniell, executive director of the Raleigh Rescue Mission:
Every popular super hero has an alter ego. Batman has Bruce Wayne. Superman has Clark Kent. Spiderman has Peter Parker.
Lynn Daniell — executive director of the Raleigh Rescue Mission, a nonprofit serving the homeless in North Carolina’s capital city — has an alter ego, too. Throughout the year, Lynn changes his clean-cut appearance to dress up as Howard, a homeless man with long hair, bent teeth, and grubby clothes.
He speaks at schools, churches, and other events. No one in the crowd realizes who Howard really is; they simply think he’s an impoverished man there to tell what it’s like to lack the basic necessities of life, comforts that most of us take for granted.
When Lynn walks into the room dressed up as Howard, the usual reaction is dead silence.
“Some people feel sorry for me,” Lynn said. “Others are scared to death.”
Lynn uses his...

The Durham Rescue Mission opened its brand-new thrift store on Tuesday. The News & Observer reports:
Two years ago, John Rush, 55, was estranged from his family and stuck in what he calls a “seven-year storm” of his own making. Bobby Taylor, also 55, said he “had no hope and didn’t know where to turn.”
Then the two men found the Durham Rescue Mission. And today, each is settled, sober and employed by the place that helped them get clean.
Taylor and Rush work for the nonprofit’s new thrift store, which opened Tuesday at 3900 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd. in Durham.
Rush transports donated furniture to the nonprofit’s three thrift stores, and Taylor is a store supervisor.
Ernie Mills, Durham Rescue Mission co-founder and CEO, said the nonprofit tries to employ participants in its programs whenever possible.
Of the 34 people the new store plans to employ, store manager Rich Carr estimates that 75 percent came from Durham Rescue Mission’s Victory Program,...

As part of its December cycle of grants to community charities, schools, churches, and the arts, the Pope Foundation has added four new grantees:
($25,000) SECU Family House at UNC Hospitals: Provides housing, healing, and hope to families with an adult patient being treated for a critical illness or injury at UNC Hospitals or its affiliated clinics.
($5,000) The Green Chair Project: Accepts gently used furniture and household items and re-sells them at a significant markdown to the working poor. Families benefit, and so does the environment because furniture that otherwise might end up in a landfill is reused.
($5,000) Helping Horse Therapeutic Riding Program: Provides horseback riding lessons for special-needs children. Therapeutic horseback riding has proven physical, mental, and psychological benefits for individuals with disabilities.
($5,000) Miracle League of the Triangle: Offers an opportunity for special-needs children to play baseball.
...

In its News Bits section from Dec. 12, Philanthropy Journal highlighted the Pope Foundation's gift to SECU Family House:
SECU Family House at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, received a $25,000 grant from the John William Pope Foundation of Raleigh. The grant is directed to its family assistance fund, "Fund A Family," and will benefit more than 100 families with an adult patient receiving treatment for a serious illness at UNC Hospitals....